After several nasty scuffles, a long-heated argument has been settled with changes for the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission, the agency that enforces the state’s campaign finance, conflict-of-interest and lobbyist disclosure laws.
Recently the Commission has been in Republican cross-hairs because the director, Mark Skoglund, had subpoenaed several party officials during an investigation into alleged campaign finance violations. Republicans, who dominate the House and Senate, responded with bills to throttle Skoglund, neuter the Commission and gut the state’s campaign finance and disclosure laws.
In the end, better heads prevailed. The governor’s chief of staff got involved as mediator. Opposing lawyers began talking, legislators relaxed, and compromise was reached. Most agreed to modest reforms, some of them needed. For example, Commission subpoenas will now involve the courts, and an administrative judge (rather than the Commission) will hear evidence to determine probable cause, and so forth.
Basic laws remain essentially the same, regulating the conduct of politicians and lobbyists, enforcing election finance and lobbying laws. The fiery components in this fight were dropped with promise of a special committee this summer to study state ethics laws and campaign finance.
This prompts discussion of this agency, its reason for being, and the trouble that incubated its creation 50 years ago.
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By Autumn 1973, the ongoing Watergate scandal had provoked a burst of American suspicion and waning confidence in government. White House officials, one after another, began to sink under evidence from federal prosecutors. Vice-president Spiro Agnew pleaded no contest to tax evasion and resigned. President Nixon tried to stop the Watergate probe by firing the special prosecutor; instead, two U.S. attorneys general resigned one after the other, and a new prosecutor had emerged.
In Kansas, a Topeka grand jury investigated state architectural contracts and allegations of bribery and kickbacks. At every level of government, officials feared the effect of election-year indictments. (Politicians and contractors would go to prison.) Public trust had turned to doubt and cynicism.
In January 1974, the leadership of the Kansas Legislature declared that the session would be “the year of morality” in state government. Little could be done in Topeka about the crisis in Washington but in Kansas, legislators vowed to chip away suspicions of government with a fresh beginning.
Senate President Robert Bennett (who would be elected governor later that year) warned of “the perilous crossroads” at which democracy had found itself.
The commitment in Topeka was for new campaign finance and conflict of interest laws, and greater regulation of lobbyists. A new 11-member Governmental Ethics Commission would direct the administration and enforcement of those laws with a fulltime staff ‒ an executive director, six auditors and an attorney .
The legislation sailed through both houses and was signed into law. A few weeks later Lynn Hellebust, the Commission’s executive director, began a grinding series of public meetings across Kansas to explain the reforms; they would apply to every campaign chairman and treasurer for every candidate for public office in Kansas. The statutes were to shed light on private and corporate influence in campaigns, limit donations, and require prompt reports and audits. They ordered lobbyists to register and to report whom they represent and what they spend.
The early rolls of the Commission comprised citizens of statesmanship and integrity, among them former House Speaker Calvin Strowig, Kansas Supreme Court Justice Harold Herd, Nancy Kassebaum (later a U.S. Senator), retired editor Clyde Reed, and Michael Davis, dean of the Kansas University School of Law.
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The road to reform was paved with good intentions, but with no provision for maintenance. In less than a year, legislators were criticizing the new laws. When reminded that they were complaining about laws they had themselves written, lawmakers began calculated criticism of the commission, accusing it of interpreting those laws too strictly.
Legislators seemed to believe that their hearts were pure, that problems with lobbyists and campaign money were Washington problems. Kansans should have no fear of foul play in Topeka, they said.
But in March 1975, a year into the new law, John Henderson, president of Washburn University and the first chairman of the ethics commission, resigned after he learned of threats against the school’s future state aid requests. A message went out that Henderson’s role as chairman could jeopardize the school’s programs.
Three months later Drew Hartnett, a distinguished attorney from Salina, resigned from the commission in disgust. Legislators, he said, “should not tamper with the commission for the same reason they should not tamper with the courts.”
(Next: Strife and suspicion)
